Adventures of the Invisi-Gal ... or life at 50

A Better Way to Say Goodbye

2012-01-22T12:48:00.003-05:00

The passing of Joe Paterno gives us pause for many reasons...as we try to engineer his legacy into something we can all live with, I find my self reflecting on decisions made in my own life.

Would I have done things differently and made other choices if I knew they could possibly be my last?

Of course I would...and watching the Penn State scandal unfold has been one of the best lessons out there for doing the right thing.

We all look back on our own decisions in life, we all wish for do-overs, especially those that involve a lack of moral turpitude.

Unfortunately, Joe Paterno lived under the assumption that his legacy was intact and he had control over it. Yet, there are too many "free radicals" out there to ever assume such a thing.

One of them was Jerry Sandusky.

Paterno and others thought they had him under control and contained...

but you can never contain someone with an addiction, they will find a way to maintain their addiction even if it means destroying you...and that's what Sandusky did to Penn State ...and those in power were just as addicted to their own positions, which blinded them to the truth of the situation.

Paterno would have passed away a hero if he had done one simple thing from the very beginning of this mess.

He should have used his power to expunge Sandusky from the world of Penn State, rather than be part of a long time cover up that runs deep and disturbing.

His power was used many times to protect execrable players that had no right to be on the Penn State gridiron.

Paterno's powers ran deep and quite far, which some of us know all too well.

His own words "I should of done more." rang empty for me, as I know he had the power to do more and didn't.

Whistle-blowers usually come from powerless places and are crushed by the very machine they are trying to unmask. ...but in this case Paterno was the machine, he not only had the capacity to speak up, he had the efficacy to see Sandusky brought to justice.

The public at large would have hailed him a hero, for jettisoning a child molester from the grounds of Penn State.

End of story, legacy intact.

Martin Luther King Jr. said it best...“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

The beginning of the end started with the truth about Jerry Sandusky and now has ended with all of us examining the misguided silences in our own lives.

Joe Paterno leaves this life, with a conflicted ending...and most of us searching for a better way to say goodbye.

...

Odds and Evergreens.

2011-12-14T08:40:00.005-05:00

I suppose it's time to say a few things about Christmas...Invisi-Gal loves Christmas waaay too much and most likely for all the wrong reasons.

1) It's always been a "given" that the amount of decorations adorning your yard are in direct correlation to your economic status...the less you make, the more you decorate...and now with the advent of inflatables , it's even more expensive to adorn your yard...so none ... none of this makes sense.

2) Have you noticed that the ubiquitous white holiday lights have been replaced by white hot blue lights with shooting stars? Is China deciding what color Christmas will be?

3) I saw an ol' timey retro lighted Santa on the roof of an ol' timey house and wondered who scampered up the ladder for their grandparents to do that, must be good kids.

4) Now that most of the Greatest Generation has passed, who will give out fruitcake?

5) How can I dislike Nicholas Cage yet, absolutely love The Family Man...

6) I refuse to use the words "war on Christmas"...because I refuse to acknowledge those who would disallow my joy. I shall re-word it "Victory of Christmas"... I live in victory everyday and it all began with Christmas!

7) It's okay to say "Baby Jesus" repeatedly during Christmas and not sound like Ricky Bobby.

8) Have wrapping paper sales diminished because more people give gift cards?

9) Apparently myrrh (as in 3 Kings gift list) can lower LDL levels of cholesterol ...

10) By the way, as a child , I always thought the lyrics to "We Three Kings" were: "We three kings of Orient are, tried to light a rubber cigar"...and I have NO idea where that came from.

chew on that for awhile dear reader....

.

I am 10 years old, I am Nothing.

2011-11-12T10:47:00.008-05:00

I am ten years old....today is the worst day of my life...I am alone in this big building in a shower ...and I am being raped.

This man who treats me special and acts like my best friend is raping me, man-raping me...I can't get away , he is too big and holds me too tight, and it hurts and I am crying to God to please stop him...please let someone walk in and stop him.

I am so scared all I can do is cry.

My prayers are answered....someone is in the building, he is walking this way, oh please, please save me!

He sees us, he will save me, I see him looking right at us...Mister, please help me...

...make him stop doing this to me...save me....why are you looking at us like that, do you know this man?

no, no, no, don't walk away...please help me...Nooooo!

Why are you leaving ?

I am so ashamed, you must think I am dirty and deserve this....I am nothing to you, I am nothing to this man raping me...

I am ten years old, and this is the worst day of my life.

I am nothing.

.....

You are State Penn

2011-11-12T10:31:00.003-05:00

Dear Rioting Penn State Students,

Perhaps your time would be better spent praying for the molested children that were not protected by your precious Jo Pa...better yet, how about spending some time in community service helping abused children get a second chance, so they can be well adjusted functioning humans.

Oh, and if you have time, write down your thoughts today so you can read them in 5 to 10 years when you are grown up and have children of your own...

maybe you'll see that your outrageous show of support for those who failed to alert the proper authorities when a CHILD was being raped on campus was incredibly misguided...

then apologize for your vandalism and for scaring the snot out of the local tax payers and get down on your knees and thank God that Jerry Sandusky never got a hold of you.

Your friend in Pittsburgh,

Invisi-Gal

.....l

Strategy 2012 ..Shoot the messenger and the ones who warned you about the message.

2011-08-08T19:32:00.007-04:00

My uncle's daughter ran up a ton of debt on her credit card ( he was a co-signer )...mostly shoes and handbags and quite a few expensive dinners for her friends, ...

rather than reign in his daughter's spending, my uncle called his daughter's boss and asked if he would give her a raise...

her boss laughed and said it wasn't his fault his daughter ran up all that debt, and maybe he should teach her some simple economics.

That went over like a lead balloon on a cold day.

So my uncle called the credit card company and got her credit limit raised.

Then my uncle asked the other members of the family to chip in and help pay off the debt...I said no and he called me unkind...my niece called me selfish and greedy ...I called her a spoiled brat and reminded her that I had always given her money before, but not anymore, gravy train out of gravy baby...and stop trying to live like a Kardashian on a Walmart paycheck... I told her to sell some of her shoes on ebay for some extra cash...

After badgering more family members, my uncle compelled her brothers to agree to pay in until one of the brothers caught my niece charging even MORE things on her card and mapping out daily shopping sprees for the next 2 years.

The word got out and other family members withdrew their support until little Miss Spendy Pants agreed to stop her bad habits.

She wouldn't and didn't.

Now she can't pay her bills and she needs a new car to get to work but can't get a loan because she has bad credit.

When the bank called to tell my uncle that they wouldn’t do the deal, he screamed at them and blamed them for the bad credit rating…he blamed THEM.

I saw him the other day at Starbuck's of all places, and he blamed it on me too, for not being supportive and my negative words, and said I should just keep my mouth shut.

So , I ended that conversation right then and there. One can't argue with idiots,fence posts or drunks...

I just patted my ol' Uncle Sam on the back

and took a sip of my tea and walked away....

...

Reasons why I 'd rather see a photo of John Wayne ...

2011-05-05T10:32:00.003-04:00

I know , I know , we have waited for this day for a long time, the capture and execution of Usama Bin Laden.

Quite honestly , I never thought it would happen, I was sure he was long dead from his diabetes and left in a grave of stone in the mountains somewhere

After 10 long years (I no longer include the Clinton years , he had him and let him go) the accumulative efforts of so many people , pretty much the same ones through 2 administrations have born fruit.

If I have to be perfectly truthful, and I can only speak for myself....without the unmitigated courage in the hearts of Navy Seal Team 6 and their clean precise raid , we would still be chasing ghosts.

But that is NOT why I'm writing this. I'm writing this to flesh out the reasons why I agree with the Obama administration on declining to release the photo of the executed war criminal Usama Bin Laden.

I do disagree ( and you knew there had to be one "disagree" in here) with the reasoning that it would "incite" the Radical Muslim world...one cannot incite the already fanatic. This is a poor measure of perceptive judgement. You can't make someone hate you MORE. There is no sliding scale on loathing.

I don't need to see the photo to prove this really happened. While I do believe that people are capable of doing just about anything to get elected or re-elected (although I think the timing is suspect)...if I choose to believe this is a scam, I have to also believe that Bush caused 911 and blew up the Twin Towers with pre planted explosives...I just can't go there on either theories.

Most of all, and this is reason above all others, I don't want that gruesome photo on the television , on magazines covers and newspapers for our children to see over and over and over again...at the check out counter, on the newstand , on the TV in your family room or kitchen...in places where 6 and 10 years olds and teenagers witness ad nauseum before you have a chance to cover it.

Our children don't need that image in their minds.

They need to know that ultimate boogey man ,UBL is gone, and that's that.

Then we need to show grace and strength , to our own, and stop worrying about how we appear to the rest of the world. We need to turn to ourselves and show that we are the benevolent victor...I have to ask myself this funny question...what would the American-est icon I can think of... John Wayne do? He would've shot UBL, and that would be the end of it, pilgrim.

No bragging, no photos, no bru-haha...the dirty job is done, and let those who did it, have the image in their minds...that's why there are folks like Seal Team 6, they can process that image at a deeper level....I'm pretty sure I can't, and I know for sure our children shouldn't be asked to.

Right now we have over 7 crest points of the Mississippi River ready to flood crops, homes, and devastate our country, let's turn to that (that includes our president) ... let's get on the run to help our own. Each new day has new big challenges, let's get on with that...chalk up one for the Team6 ...and let's move on to the business of tomorrow with one less burden off our backs.

Right now I want the image of my son smiling as he goes to bat for his team, and enjoy this sunny day, because others can handle the truth, and give us tomorrow.

And yeah, I'll quote the Duke:

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday."

John Wayne

...

2011-05-02T16:43:00.004-04:00

The new moon is my favorite part of the lunar calendar...it's a time to make plans and begin the next 28 days of craziness.

Last night May 1st, we saw the importance of moon phases in a tactical special ops assault in Pakistan on the compound that housed Usama Bin Laden ... the Navy Seals went in on a new moon because the sky is dark, and they could move undetected and use their night/thermal vision gear.

Folks who love to stargaze make their stargazing plans for new moons because they can see the stars better in their telescopes.

Farmers plant by the moon phases..see the Farmer's Almanac for details...it depends if your crop yeilds it's fruit above or below ground as to what pahse you plant by.

I generally plant by the new moon...pull weeds in the last quarter.

I also cut my hair during the waxing phase of the moon.

If you are going to have elective surgery..do it within 5 days before or after a new moon...if you can help it don't' have surgery anywhere near a Full Moon...too much swelling and hemorrhaging can happen.

Hey now, are you tilting your head and making a face?

Well it's true that the moon controls the tides and we are made of over 60% water, so we feel it...ask any woman who was stuck coinciding her cycle with the lunar cycle...

hell hath no fury.

Full moons are great for howling and capture the flag in the neighbor's yard...on a booga booga note, it's a great time for purging...getting rid of stuff, internal , external just stuff in general.

Of course I had a baby on a full moon, that is serious purging....and the maternity ward was full, they were asking people to leave a day early, they needed the beds...it sounded like a horror chamber all night, all the screaming...all the scared husbands.

So it's a new moon right now, it's a time to start something new ...begin a project...plant the seeds...kill a terrorist...take your pick.

...

The Housecoat through the Ages

2011-04-12T08:36:00.004-04:00

The other day it was a beautiful spring day, a bit on the warm side but gorgeous none the less...as I started to dress to head out to mulch the garden...I realized I hadn't done the switch of the cold weather to warm weather clothes in the closet yet.

Egad, a fashion "don't" on the horizon.

But there, on the chair, was the all purpose any season outfit of the modern woman...yoga pants and a t-shirt...doesn't matter if you even do yoga, you got the pants for it girl.

It's an acceptable casual assemble, any-wear outfit...the coffee shop, the supermarket, the soccer game...it's says, "I just came from yoga class, smell my organic affluence".

The bottom line is, it's nothing but this generation's version of the housecoat.

You do remember the housecoat don't you...you must have had a neighbor, or grandma who walked around in one, bare legged, shaggy slippers, smoking a cigarette, cat's eye glasses.

They had snaps for a quick throw in the wash after cleaning the house.

You threw it on over PJ's to answer the door for the meter reader, the mail man, or to let the dog run.

Somewhere in the late 70's, the house coat phased out of our lives and velour robes with big stripes, and a zipper down the middle snuck in there..

Then the advent of denim as fashion burst on the scene and jeans became the uniform of the stay at home mom, straight into the late 80's and 90's

...remember Hope Steadman on Thirty Something? Jeans, t-shirt, flannel shirt, holding the baby in the unfinished kitchen

..and lurking behind all that, in the fashion shadows, was the dreaded sweat pant.

Ugh, I don't care if you had the body of an Olympic athlete, NOBODY looked good in sweat pants...especially the ones with elastic ankles, they made your legs look like hot dog balloons...that's why I always tried to steal scrubs from my friends connected with the hospital...plus it made me look like a med student...smell my potential affluence.

Then the wonderful millennium rolled in, and sweats became the costume of aging mall walkers (especially the matching sets) and yoga popped it's new age head up and became the new fashion clearing house of ladies who lunch (vegan only puh-leese) and Meg Ryan.

Now it has all reached critical mass, and been dumbed down and has become ...the new housecoat.

Which is fine by me, whether I'm actually doing yoga or just bending over in the garden or meeting the Fed Ex person at the door... I need an easy uniform that's washable and

now available at TJ Maxx at great prices.

I'm just wondering what is the next future housecoat, will it come full circle to the original cotton or polyester dress?

By then, I hope I'm old with pale stick legs and wild gray hair smoking an electronic cigarette and wearing cat's eye sunglasses, sitting on the porch with my iPad, yelling at the kids crossing through my yard,

...then it will feel complete.

....

What Budget?

2011-04-09T16:41:00.009-04:00

Well, yes, my husband and I have failed to come up with a workable budget.

Contrary to the scare tactics perpetrated by the the non cooking half of this partnership...The Invisi-Gal household will NOT come to a screeching halt...the mortgage will be paid, insurance will be paid, tuition will be paid.

However, Starbucks , The Apple Store and Overstock.com will suffer for at least 3 days until we can come to an agreement.

I will argue that coffee is a necessary tonic for the household to run smoothly and my husband will argue something about hard drives as I put my fingers into my ears and say "Lalalalala".

Manicures and brand new golf balls may become a thing of the past....instead, investment in a locking gas cap will be imminent.

We will remind ourselves, that as children of the 70's, we know a thing or two about Recessions and gas lines and cashing in the loose change from the couch cushions....and that the only ones who really dressed like it was the 70's were confined to members of the The Brady Bunch.

We will long for the entrepreneurial spirit ushered in with the collection of bottles for the two cent deposit and the Archie comic book it bought for only 25 of those cents.

But nothing will stop, life will just meander until it finds the path of least resistance to the end of each day....

...at which time we will watch programs like "Extreme Couponing" with a religious fervor once reserved for "Selling New York".

Once the budget has passed, my husband will declare victory while I motion silently behind him with a big nicely manicured "V", and sip my Starbucks, slowly.

....

So, you think you can dance?

2011-03-14T11:01:00.012-04:00

Yes, I said yes to a Dancing with the Celebrities of (insert your town here)... I guess I was a target, because I never back down from a challenge, unless it includes something with extreme heights and sharp pointy thingies.

I watched Dancing with The Stars, I was a supreme couch critic and arm chair analyzer of Kate Gosselin's Bride of Frankenstein arms and David Hasselhoff's -am -I still-sexy-desperation....no problem, I'm am so much better than those posers...hah!

Can you dance? Sure ( I think) although, truth be told I was a teenager in the 70's and no one touched each other when they danced , let alone LOOKED at each other...yeah I can dance, like a white girl to a back beat.

Ballroom dancing? What's so hard about that...ballrooms are big, I'll have plenty of room. Eat my fairy dust, wimps.

I would like to say right now, that I completely relied on the notion that I can find the beat in a song and also carry the DNA of Mamie, my grandmother, who danced with Ray Bolger (the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz) and was a flapper and tap dancer extraordinaire...perhaps the best way to meet a challenge is to have such blind ignorance that you can't fear a failure you don't know…are you followin' me here camera guy?

I was partnered with a pro competitor/ winner /real deal dancer and instructor...thank you baby Jesus...he had impeccable manners and I don't think I ever heard him swear...even when I stepped on his feet, clocked him in the eye with my elbow and put immeasurable stress on his groin during lifts.

He sized me up, quietly calculating how much leverage he would need for this little piggy on a lift, tried not to laugh at my "Amish gone Wild "dance shoes" and immediately dumbed down whatever grand dance routine he had planned for the event...and took my hand and walked with me across the floor and asked me if I could do a cartwheel..."Sure, I used to be a cheerleader, haven't done one in years, but I'm game..." what did I get myself into?

We rehearsed once or twice in December and then the holidays hit, and as always, when exposed to sweet family and snot nosed petri dish children, I got sick...the virus from hell... out of commission for 10 days…the event is March 12^th, are we in the deep doo yet?

Once I could breathe without choking, I headed back to the studio...Bill, my instructor, was waiting with dance shoes for me, here's what you need, suede soles, closed toe and t-straps, because we are dancing the waltz...the waltz?...I wanted to cha cha, or samba and shake my hair around and look younger than my 54 years...the waltz?

Controlled, fluid, poetic...the waltz...words that would never describe me. W.T.H?

The waltz is a swan gliding on the pond...I am a terrier bouncing up and down on the couch tearing your underwear to shreds.

Which brings me back to Bill...he is the Dance Whisperer ... he makes you dance as you walk in the door, wears you down, puts you in a calm submissive state, then he trains you...just like a terrier...gives you chocolate after a good session. He is the Cesar Milan of the ballroom.

He is the leader, you follow...once again, he is the leader, you follow, alpha girl...what is happening to me, I am starting to like this follow business...what is happening? Do I have to relinquish my Xena Warrior Princess status card?

I am now plunging head first into the world of ballroom dance, I am scouring the videos on You Tube, learning words like developpe and promenade.

I am looking at ballgowns, which are Southern Beauty pageant gowns on steroids...and they are studded with rhinestones, dangling with beads, layered with tulle and mesh, lined with body suits (private parts contained) cupped to stand up "the girls" and tighter than sausage casing.

Oh and did I mention all the TOUCHING that goes on? Let's start with saying, I am not a touchy feely huggy kissy person, not even with my own family...this is my idea of payback for all the hugs I never gave in my life....partner dancing is all touch, connection so you can feel his lead...

When you dance the waltz with your partner, there isn't a place his hands don't go...nether regions, other regions, give me a region....it all gets touched and you have to get over it or go home....

Bill is slowly exposing all this to me as we train, trying to desensitize me, lowering shock values and keeping me focused...I still step on his feet...still.

I am finding my mind is struggling to remember the steps and combinations, they are getting jumbled up with what time is my son's soccer game, did I pack his cleats, did I pay the car insurance, when is the dog's vet appointment, did I get directions to that voice over gig, did I put sour cream on the grocery list for the enchiladas, is my husband's meeting today or tomorrow, one two three, one two three, step step step, spin...sh*t, where am I?

One day, as we are moving along quite well, he suggests that my husband come in and video tape us dancing... sure this would be grand, my husband can see the man responsible for my calm submissive state, and ask him how he does it....and I get to show him how well I can dance.

My husband tapes us, tells me I'm "brave for doing this", and leaves it at that....hmmmm...where's the "you are amazing honey"....I watch the video later, in horror...it’s the training film from hell in a big ass hand basket..I'm not brave, I'm an idiot and most of all a really BAD dancer....I cry, crawl into bed with a bag of carbohydrates in full fetal position and fall asleep with Nancy Grace on in the background...this is the stuff of nightmares.

Overnight, in my dreams, I am flying, spinning, rolling , weightless ... I am reminded of who I am and what I am capable of.

The next day, I walk in to the studio, Bill looks at me and says softly,"did you watch the video?" ... "Yes!," I exhale loudly "...and I had an epiphany.... I looked terrible, I had that deer in the headlights look and I'm so fat and I can't believe you aren't ready to quit this whole thing...BUT... I know what I need to do now... because up to this point I've been acting like a fish out of water, trying to catch up, an outsider...it's time to claim this or at least look like I'm claiming this...I am a dancer, and I'm going to start moving like one and acting like one and DANCING like one!"

Bill tilts his head and says, "Good, finally... let's get to work we only have a few more weeks...oh, and I brought you some herbs from my kitchen garden."

I am now thinking and acting like...a dancer...my posture is up, I find my self standing straighter all the time, I learn to use the floor to slide into moves, and I am not afraid to bend backwards, and I feel fluid, and pretty...as the song says, everything’s beautiful at the ballet.

Now I am bringing Bill chicken soup (made with his herbs) and we are swapping stories about childhood and laughing as we waltz...I can converse with him and dance at the same time, and possibly chew gum... I am a dancing fool savant.

In his wisdom he has selected a song we could rock the waltz to...a bit of r & b ... I Never Loved a Man by Aretha Franklin...we used the version from the movie The Commitments...I saw it one night on TV while I was practicing a spin, it felt like a good sign.

The choreography opened me up to the ability to perform...that I can do, been on stage singing since I was 14...I can work the crowd...now I have to do it without my voice...because, and let’s say this all together "I'm a dancer!".

I can't stop singing the song as we rehearse to it... Bill says I have to , you aren't allowed to sing on stage in a dance competition...Mr.Ballroom, you sure have a lot of rules.

I am now eating protein like it's the new bread...I am spinning every time I pass a mirror, I am exfoliating and using tanning towels on the parts not covered in my gown...which Bill has acquired for me "I take care of my girls.." he said , and he does.

It is periwinkle blue, studded in rhinestones all around the décolletage …with the most twirl-a-matic skirt ever, I feel like Ginger Rogers after downing two caramel macchiatos....twinkle toes and all that glows.

It is March 12th and we are dancing...all the training, all the foot crunches, all the time obsessing over a single step is here...in the lights on the floor with judges, the 65 bobby pins holding my hair in place, my family, God, my dance partner, and the specter of Mamie watching over me...I remind myself how all this is for charity and all these people have arrived here to have fun, dress like princesses and princes and raise money for those who couldn't imagine such a night...I am weightless, on air....

I can't even hear the crowd...I hear the three judges giving their critique and holding up paddles that read 9-10-9 Holy Moley....can't believe it... I look at Bill, he is beaming... another "celebrity" trained and exhibited, good showing, it's like a human Westminster Kennel Club moment, breed that dancer!

My fake tan held up through the sweat and makes my permanent flashed smile look Hollywood white...

I can't stop smiling...

even though my feet are on fire...

I see my husband, his face is telling me he can't believe I am the same bungling woman he videotaped weeks ago in the dance studio...he is amazed...

My son is relieved and not scarred for life...

The 65 bobby pins are shellacked and still in place...

I am thinking about a plate of pasta with sausage and tons of cheese on top...

an unexpected tear rolls down my face,

and now I know why,

I have to say goodbye to the big ballroom

the sparkly gown,

the false eyelashes,

the bling earrings,

but I don't say goodbye to Bill,

we will see each other soon,

I will be back,

I hear a salsa class is starting,

Sign me up,

because...

dancer!

...

Odds n Ends

2011-02-26T10:30:00.003-05:00

SO much is going on, Invisi-Gal is spinning like a dervish on crack...here are some odds n' ends to consider...

1) Charlie Sheen is not only NOT sober, he is exhibiting brain damage from drug abuse...of course dear readers, I am NOT a doctor, but I know a when the all the tools in the shed are dull, it's time to close up shop and sell the farm.

2) By his own admission AFL-CIO Union Emperor, Richard Trumka... talks with the White House everyday....he also believes that raising taxes create jobs...oops I just threw up a little on that one...also, while his union has been dying financially , he has raised his own pay to double since 2000...let's play AUDIT THE UNIONS...won't that be fun? See how much his own members have lost....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4NrT2oTQqE&feature=player_embedded

3) Ball room dancing will save many marriages, because it is one of the few times the man of the house can actually lead and tell his wife what to do.... she must be a calm submissive, just like a day with the Dog Whisperer.

4) Fashion is full swing back to the 70's...I was a teenager then, during the Recession, does this mean we have to sit in gas lines again? Is fashion the new crystal ball?

5) Chicken pot pie is a labor of love.

6) Kettleball workouts were developed by sadists, sadists with great bodies.

7) University of Central Florida is facing down an appearance by a radical Imam to speak to the Muslim student society there , and I wait patiently for good, peaceful Muslims to protest his appearance...still waiting.

http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/faith_news/022211-controversial-imam-to-speak-at-university-of-central-florida

...

OVER 50 MEANS SHUT UP AND LISTEN, I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

2011-02-15T14:19:00.009-05:00

Yes you heard me, Invisi-Gal is telling you how much easier your life would be, if you would just listen to the women in your life over the age of 50...

...one caveat however, I would caution to steer clear of the over 50 bitter ones...they are easy to spot, they flirt with your husband (because their's ran away a long time ago), they make sure to say things like "Lovely dress, I almost bought it when it came out last year."... and they tell you how your children will end up hating you too....RUN from these women...

Now having said that, if you are lucky enough to encounter an over 50 woman who is mentally intact, and she has engaged you in conversation...do listen.

Sometimes it's a simple comment at a register..."Oh I love those shoes, (and wait for the lean-in) I wish I could get back all the money that I spent on $250.00 shoes when I was your age" .

Here's the one I love...overheard at a Starbucks..."You really don't need extra life insurance, what you need is disability insurance"...best advice I ever heard and it came from an over 5o gal.

And of course my favorite..."only buy a house that needs to be renovated if you're under the age of 40..otherwise start looking for a home with a first floor master suite."

Child rearing tips are my favorite..."The word "No" is not a swear word , dammit."

or the wise "Let the kids eat dirt, I did, and I'm fine".

Also understand that Invisi-Gals comment by not saying anything....like when you pick the vomit yellow paint for the kitchen...not a blessed word is heard.

Advice on love is this simple...."Never marry a man who doesn't get along with his mother, because you will spend the better (or for worse) part of your marriage convincing him that you are not his mother".

So next time you are in the Supermarket and your toddler is cranking and the baby is screaming and you are dropping sippy cups on the floor and a woman over 50 steps in to help you by distracting the low blood sugar toddler so you can reset the baby back in the cart...

when she comments that they often give free cheese to kids at the deli counter (a nice way to say...your kid is hungry, dear)...

don't see it as a judgement, or interference...

she has been there...

shut up and listen....

she knows what she's talking about...

....

Wednesday's child is full of lead.

2011-02-10T13:34:00.003-05:00

Here's the deal y'all....don't call me on Wednesday nights from 10pm to 11pm...because I will be watching my self-united-in-marriage husband Timothy Olyphant in Justified on FX.

It is based on the short stories of Elmore Leonard... note to self: pick up any book with his name on it.

It's been beautifully adapted for television by Graham Yost (The Pacific)...it is gritty and filled with eloquent and relevant profanity and ooozes the underground charm of the South.

Finally, a well written TV show...it is vulgar poetry and completely Shakespearean ... and I am hooked.

I am fighting with my girlfriends over who gets Raylan, laughing with my husband over Gordy's comebacks, and shaking my head in wonderment over Graham Yosts' brilliant mind.

For one hour I suspend all outside world activities and enter Harlan, Kentucky for better or worse, and allow myself to get involved in others people business...oooh my favorite thing...and these other people have interesting bidness.

Yes there is swearin', shootin' and some lovin'.... but none of it feels gratuitous in the least...and the hat jokes are perfect.

.....remember, no calls, no texts, no emails, no nuttin' , I ain't a answerin', I'm fixin' to watch me some Justified....

carry on...y'all

http://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/originals/justified/...

Labor pains...

2011-01-31T09:34:00.004-05:00

Invisi-Gal is very upset...as of today, over 729 organizations have been granted waivers from participating in Obama Care.

Ex-squeeze me?

Looks like they are mostly unions and quite a few from ... hold your heart now dear reader.. the CHICAGO area!

Invisi-Gal wants to know why she can't get a waiver ... ooops maybe I didn't vote for the right person... mmm, how do they know .. they seem to know union members did.

Wow, what a perceptive group of people...

Read and weep:

http://michellemalkin.com/2011/01/28/waivers-for-favors-big-labors-obamacare-escape-hatch/

Why are we letting this happen?

And why, while I'm at it, are we letting the government legislate what light bulbs we buy?

Maybe to keep us in the dark....so we can't see what is right in front of our faces?

......

The Evolution of Crushes

2011-01-24T10:55:00.004-05:00

My very first crush , about age 5 , was on my dad...I wanted to marry him, he could build me shelves for my Barbies and fix my bike ... my mother told me I could have him ... and all his laundry too.

Age 7 , definitely Paul McCartney...the Beatles had invaded America, I wrote him a fan letter and invited him to dinner...just don't bring Ringo.

Somewhere in between, I thought Ken was pretty cute, although a bit plastic...but he did exactly what I told him to do, and I liked that.

By 10, (1967) I was torn between Davey Jones of the Monkees (it was a Brit thing) and Carl Yastremski....he was left handed like me and that pretty much ended at that.

Junior High school found me turning my crushes in towards my own social strata...the football captains and the errant bad boys both had my heart. In a bit of James Dean vs. Johnny Unitas.

By high school, it was James Taylor and when I was feeling rebellious, Jim Morrison...but a word of warning, never have a crush on a man whose hair is nicer than yours, or a smaller butt, it can only breed contempt.

In my twenties, I stopped having crushes on unattainable men, and developed crushes on guys my age ...mostly musicians, and romantic poetry writers... they all were jobless, aimless and I saw that as freedom..instead of just dumb.

Although somewhere in there there was a bodybuilder, Corvette driving insurance salesman (he did play guitar)... but I think that was an extension of Ken.

In my 30's , my crushes turned to men who had some kind of power, politically, financially, socially... I knew by then, that money was a bit more important , especially in the shoe department...'nuff said.

Tick, tick, tick, what's that?? Ohh the ol' biological clock.... it hits big time in the early 40's...if you haven't conceived by then... plus the sing song voice of your mother saying "A woman only has so many eggs, dear"... starts resonating in your ears like a stadium horn....

sooo the crushes go to good breeding and fatherly stock.... Mel Gibson (pre Oksana) and Harrison Ford, and of course Paul McCartney, whose loving, monogamous, musical, progeny heavy, marriage to Linda was the bomb!

Now I am in my 50's, and gone away are all the romantic ideals...and I am faced with the stark reality that all I really need is a man who can plumb a toilet and find the stud in the wall to hang my new mirror

...they have all been replaced by Mike Holmes

...that's right gals, that's what it comes down to, a crew cut overall wearin' Canadian handyman. He fixes everything and gives you a big hug and leaves.

So now we have come full circle haven't we, we just want our daddies after all...

all that money wasted on therapy, you could've just read this.

....

The Green Turtleneck...and other things I can't find.

2011-01-20T11:12:00.007-05:00

We live in a house that measures around 2000 Sq.feet...not tiny but not a McMansion by any stretch...there are only 3 of us and I am pretty organized.

So why, WHY, can't I find my green turtleneck sweater?

I'll tell you why, because I live in a state of unconsciousness ... auto-pilot so to speak.

As a female I multi-task like a whirling dervish... that's why women make such good news producers, they can write, edit, take a phone call while making a comment to someone down the hall and get the story live on the air , no problem.

It dates back to the hunter, gatherer, raise the little Neanderthals, and kick that sabre tooth in the butt, gene pool. We are meant to multi task...

which means we are masters of the dual circuitry in the brain that teaches, and moves. Cognitive and action, one takes over as needed...here I'll let the experts e'splain:

http://www.livescience.com/health/brain-habit-learning-autopilot-100609.html

Which brings me back to my green turtleneck...I know already that it's somewhere in this house, and unless the dog has decided she looks better in green than in brown, then I am the culprit.

We do so many things on auto-pilot...driving being one...how many times have you been so deep in thought as you drove to a familiar destination, to find yourself there and parked before you can blink?

How any times have you checked a email or text (that required an action from you) in the middle of doing something else, only to see it a day a later and cringe at your in-action?

Once again, we are brought back to the turtleneck; I know in the process of the mundane ( as in laundry) the mind wanders...perhaps to a sunny golf-course in a day dream, and the folding and putting away is on auto....and my concern for my green turtleneck is waylaid until I want to wear it...as in TODAY!

This is were it gets fun...

I need to retrace in my mind, the last time I wore it and if I had travelled during then and will it involve a phone call to see if I left it somewhere...once again solidifying my forgetful base.

I search all the usual places, once twice and three times until I FIND IT, right there, on top of the dryer under the mess I call my son's, I-can't-find-my-dresser-or -I-would-put-these-things-away pile....and I want you to know, I looked there two times already.

So apparently my COGNITIVE part of my brain was not in charge while my body was in ACTION on auto pilot looking for the green freakin' turtleneck.

And the lesson in all of this?

Well, it has nothing to do with memory, dear reader...

so sorry for the red herring....

Nooooo, it has to do with career choices...

because this is exactly why I do what I do and NOT work in a nuclear power facility, because you never want to hear me say...

"Did I remember to cool the rods in the core today?".

.....

Odds n' Ends....

2011-01-19T09:24:00.006-05:00

Invisi-Gal is the original touch screen maven...I had a Treo back when that was the ONLY touch screen phone on the market...now I am an iPhone robot and I am so glad this problem has been solved:

http://www.agloves.com/

------------------------------------------------------

I am addicted to Le Crueset cookware...but I am a savvy shopper and buy it majority discounted at TJ Maxx or Marshall's...I use it for everything, and the fact that it is soooo heavy just means that Invisi-Gal gets a mini-work out in the kitchen!

http://www.lecreuset.com/

------------------------------------------------------

Thanks to a sharp cookie who comments on this blog, I have been able to locate the book of poems from my childhood....if I could only find my old Barbie corvette, I would really be complete.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Best-Loved-Poems-of-the-American-People/Hazel-Felleman/e/9780385000192

------------------------------------------------------

Invis-Gal is cleaning house in many ways, especially when it comes to people who act like jackals or just plain cranky people...so reading this book may help:

http://www.drlaura.com/index.php/eng/Books/Books-By-DrLaura/Surviving-a-Shark-Attack-On-Land-Overcoming-Betrayal-and-Dealing-with-Revenge-Dr.-Laura

-------------------------------------------------------

This show actually looks funny, Invisi-Gal may have to watch and eat chips n' dip:

http://www.wetv.com/joan-and-melissa

_________________________________

and lastly, cabin fever is striking deep right now, and it's either redo the bathroom or start in on some early spring cleaning:

http://www.marthastewart.com/article/spring-cleaning-checklist

Those are the odds n' ends...the New Year is now for real and I was thinking , aside from learning ball room dancing, this would be a good year to break some old habits and start some new ones...

since according to my son's entire middle school that 2102 is the End of the World...

well I usually don't take advice from people wearing braces, but they seem sooo sincere....so I might as well get on with whatever I was supposed to get on with.

So....on with it then!

...

Don't ask why I know this one....

2011-01-15T12:08:00.003-05:00

I am going through the poems I learned as a child and recited in the kitchen with my mom, this was one of her favorites, I get a feeling it was something she had to learn in college...I will tell you, as a child, I hated the big words , as Invisi-gal I still hate the big words, but it creeps me out a wee bit.

It strikes me as a poem used by med students to remember sterilization techniques and now possibly by bacteria-phobes....

Strictly Germ Proof by Arthur Guiterman written in 1916

The Antiseptic Baby and the Prophylactic Pup
Were playing in the garden when the Bunny gamboled up;
They looked upon the Creature with a loathing undisguised;—
It wasn't Disinfected and it wasn't Sterilized.

They said it was a Microbe and a Hotbed of Disease;
They steamed it in a vapor of a thousand-odd degrees;
They froze it in a freezer that was cold as Banished Hope
And washed it in permanganate with carbolated soap.

In sulphurated hydrogen they steeped its wiggly ears;
They trimmed its frisky whiskers with a pair of hard-boiled shears;
They donned their rubber mittens and they took it by the hand
And elected it a member of the Fumigated Band.

There's not a Micrococcus in the garden where they play;
They bathe in pure iodoform a dozen times a day;
And each imbibes his rations from a Hygienic Cup—
The Bunny and the Baby and the Prophylactic Pup.

....

More poems I learned as a child...

2011-01-15T12:03:00.003-05:00

In form and feature, face and limb,
I grew so like my brother,
That folks got taking me for him,
And each for one another.
It puzzled all our kith and kin,
It reached a fearful pitch;
For one of us was born a twin,
Yet not a soul knew which.

One day, to make the matter worse,
Before our names were fixed,
As we were being washed by nurse,
We got completely mixed;
And thus, you see, by fate's decree,
Or rather nurse's whim,
My brother John got christened me,
And I got christened him.

This fatal likeness even dogged
My footsteps when at school,
And I was always getting flogged,
For John turned out a fool.
I put this question, fruitlessly,
To everyone I knew,
"What would you do, if you were me,
To prove that you were you?"

Our close resemblance turned the tide
Of my domestic life,
For somehow, my intended bride
Became my brother's wife.
In fact, year after year the same
Absurd mistakes went on,
And when I died, the neighbors came
And buried brother John.

Some things never leave us.

2011-01-14T09:11:00.006-05:00

I've been thinking and thinking about what to write today...hoping in some way that another cup of coffee may contain the necessary jolt to set the words in motion.

You see, today is my mom's birthday. If she were still here, she would be 81 years young.

She's been gone now 3 years, and I have been keeping a list of all the things I wanted to ask her.

It's a funny list full of unrelated questions like:

What ever happened to the needle point purses we made in the 70's?

and , what age were you when you were diagnosed with diabetes ?

the other day I was trying to remember a poem she taught me about courage and persistence...I used to recite it for her in the kitchen...it was a light hearted romp of a poem, easy enough for a 10 year old to memorize, but filled with a deeper message that I hold tight to this day...along with If by Kipling and a slew of others....

HERE'S THE POEM, I FOUND IT ONLINE!

IT COULDN’T BE DONE

POEM VIEWS: 47734

Forced to drop out of high school to help support his family, Edgar A. Guest started his long career at theDetroit Free Press as a

BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

At least no one ever has done it;”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat

And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

There are thousands to prophesy failure,

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Thanks mom, I needed that.....

Let's get this party started! Ban everything!

2011-01-14T08:53:00.005-05:00

Invisi-gal thinks this photo may incite people to choke Steelers or their fans, the violent imagery is most UNCIVIL .

The photographer should be held accountable if any one gets hurt , right?

Oh, and Invisi-Gal heard all sorts of trash talk on Sports Talk Radio, I think there should be a law passed so they can't do that anymore, right?

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/01/14/no-love-lost-between-jets-patriots-

Come on, let's get this party started, be sure to invite BigBrother, and wear a name tag !

.....

Finger pointin' 101

2011-01-12T10:23:00.008-05:00

Welcome to the Sheriff Clarence Dupnik's full blown course of "Finger Pointin' 101"

Today we will learn how to divert attention from your own complicity, and throw it at a non related person, place or thing.

IE: "The butler did it!" or my favorite "The Tea Party did it!"

FP101 will teach you how to stall for time while you backtrack secretly over your own incompetence by appearing on TV and radio repeatedly.

If you act now, we will give you a list of inaccurate facts and a free copy of "Political Bias, My Perfect Party".

No need to investigate a crime here, conjecture will get you what you want...a media lynch mob is ready and waiting , just point to the RIGHT!

This full comprehensive course will show you how to build smoke screen that not even your own town can see through...it's exciting to see how much we can manipulate the press!

Be sure to dishonor the dead by making your own political agenda known...why focus on the lives and loves of those lost? Your political agenda is much more important than that...isn't it?

And finally, be sure to make this ALL ABOUT YOU....

because eventually, they will find out, you knew all about madman Jared Loughner and did NOTHING to stop him from harming someone in your community.

We hope you enjoyed our Finger pointin' 101....please enjoy further reading of this insider's blog, The Cholla Jumps, it helps to have the facts:

http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-is-a-product-of-she

....

Crisis,Opportunity,Finger Pointing and the death of Christina Taylor Green

2011-01-10T11:07:00.010-05:00

I expected the rants, the rhetoric, the finger pointing, that's what we have become...

The horrible tragedy we, as a nation, witnessed yesterday in the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and 19 others at a community event at a Safeway in Tuscon Az. has become a lighting rod for those who turn sometimes unexplainable tragedies into a political springboard.

I refuse to read FB rants, and have deleted certain, "news sources" from my bookmarks because of their flagrant and self-serving agenda attachments to this tragic and sorrowful moment.

If we are to examine the root of this evil act, we need to take a look at the history of the assailant Jared Loughner's mental illness.

He was troubled enough to be rejected by the military, kicked out of Pima County Community College for irrational outbursts (not to return without a mental health clearance), and plastered his insane rants on You Tube and My Space...he exhibits similar behavior to Seung-Hui Cho who shot and killed 32 innocent people at Virginia Tech, or Theodore John "Ted" Kaczynski, the Unabomber who killed 3 people with bombs.

They publicly ranted, their families were aware of their illness, and they were signs of disturbed minds...however, because these men were over the age of 18, there was no responsibility (legally) on their parents and certainly little the law could do until they acted out.

Here is a link to a disturbing record of his actions at PCCC, by a fellow student...it was clear he was about to do something violent, and he slipped through the cracks...

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2011/01/jared-loughners-behavior-recor.html

These kind of sick individuals have no problem attaining, guns, or knives, swords, or the means to build bombs, and no amount of legislation will stop it.

This is not a clarion call for gun control (how do we stop mentally ill folks from owning guns if we refuse to legally acknowledge their condition)...you will not stop a Jared Loughner or a gang banger for that matter from getting a gun... you will however, stop me from being able to get one to protect myself from the aforementioned.

What we need to do is carefully examine the issues of mental illness...in the mid 80's we witnessed the closing of mental institutions all over the US, somewhat a fall out of the Mental Health Systems Act...we needed to review how we treated the mentally ill, and at the same time in a most unintended way, allowed a runaway train effect to happen.

One cannot tell exactly whose rights are protected, those who live a sane and just life, or those who clearly exhibit severe anti-reality/social behavior and have no mechanism with which to cope.

They need little or nothing to incite them to violence, whichever way the wind blows is a good enough excuse...ie: Charles Manson was incited to murder listening the to the Beatles song, Helter Skelter.

This is a scary slippery slope and one of great controversy, for it is clear that Jared Loughner was having an extremely difficult time coping with life in general. Is it more merciful to him or us to separate him from society before he acts out...and how do we determine if and when he will act out and who is to say he (or any one like him) ever will?

This is all food for thought and I’m cautiously hopeful we stay focused and calm and stop turning this into red versus blue as usual crap….

Rep. Giffords was a perfect example of working across the aisle...a supporter of both Conservative and Liberal issues, a self described Blue Dog Democrat.

Jared Loughner , in his twisted mind, felt a need to snuff out her light....and those near her.

He had no real focused political agenda, he was fascinated by Communism, he was a self described Atheist, and an Anti-Semite, he was a 911 Truther who hated George Bush, his leanings were akin to Neo Nazi, but basically it was all irrational and insane...why he targeted Rep. Gabrielle Giffords is beyond any of us....perhaps her being Jewish and a beautiful woman, stirred something in him, who knows and so far he isn’t talking while in custody.

Why 9 year old Christina Taylor Green , who among others at the event, had to die too makes no sense. Her courageous mother, in an interview this morning was clear to point out, we need to make a change in how we deal with the mentally insane.

Please don't rush to me with comments about depression, and anxiety...this isn't what I am talking about. I'm talking about full-blown mental illness, when a person cannot differentiate reality from fantasy.

While there is no doubt that Jared Loughner premeditated this massacre, his motives behind it were insane and irrational.

There was no reason for this and no explanation for it...and turning it into a political gain as in "an opportunity" ala the famous Rahm Emmanuel quote is self serving and diminishes the greater aspect of it all.

Finger pointing is better left aimed at your own mirror right now...

and maybe, if you are so inclined, press those hands together and say a prayer for all the victims of this sorrowful moment.

Politics has no place here, it is unwanted and unseemly.

Between me and the Mack truck

2011-01-06T12:24:00.006-05:00

Allow me to begin my story with the moment I had before I left the house this morning.

As an aging ingenue, I know that accessories matter more than showing leg...so I change purses,scarves and shoes often...I know I know, I'm the only one who notices...and that's who I'm trying to impress anyway.

As I was putting essentials in my purse; raw sugar packets freshly stolen from Starbucks, lipstick, reading glasses...I grabbed my insurance card and held it in my hand for a moment as a voice said "You might need this today".....

Now, I am old enough to listen to that voice...I fought it for years, thought it was my alter ego, who I was never properly introduced to. Now I know, it's divine, it's the whisper of God or my overworked guardian angel...I listen to it and never doubt it.....so on with my story:

One would think at the age of 54 (no I'm not really, yes I am really) that I would have seen almost every idiotic thing a human being can do in traffic.

Until today.

The snow was falling steadily this morning so I thought, better get out there and get your stuff done before the idiots do... apparently, as you will read ahead, Invisi-gal was about a minute too late on that one.

I was driving on a busy 3 lane highway, in the middle lane, all lanes were busy and filled with traffic, and moving at a steady pace....there were cars directly in front of me and a big Mack truck behind me.

I had a fleeting thought that I should get into the left lane...I don't like it when big trucks are behind me...they don't stop well and whiplash collars don't look good on me.

The road was slick and covered with fresh snow and a car was starting to pass on my left so, I decided to stay put in my lane....then it happened.

The car, two cars in front of me, who shall now until eternity be referred to as the Idiot Car, stopped dead in the middle lane and put it's right turn signal on to cross over the right lane to turn off the road.....

Refresh my memory here....is't it ILLEGAL to make a right turn off a 3 lane highway from the MIDDLE lane?

Shouldn't they, if they aren't an Idiot Car, merely merge onto the right lane and exit from there?

Okaaay , just checkin'....

The car in front of me slammed on his brakes and started skidding into the stopped Idiot Car and I hit my brakes and started skidding towards the car in front of me...and the Big Mack Truck behind me started skidding towards me....

in a blinding flash, I reacted.... after a quick assessment that went like this:

"did that car pass me on the left yet,sh*t here comes that truck, is there anyone in the left lane, sh*t here comes that truck, well I'd rather broadside someone than be sandwiched between a Mack-sh*t-here-comes-that- truck and the car in front of me, so I'm ditching left RIGHT NOW!"

My darling Invisi-gal chariot lept into the left lane without skidding -I love you forever all wheel drive- and the Mack truck, now blaring it's horn, skidded right up to the bumper of the car that was once in front of me...by now everyone on the highway was blaring their horns at the supreme Idiot Car trying to make a right turn from the center lane.

Had I not been almost jazzed by the NEAR MISS moment of just barely becoming united in accidental marriage to a Mack Truck...I would have turned my car around , found the Idiot Car no doubt pulled over on the right side of the road and unleashed the wrath and eloquent profanity of the daughter of a WWII Marine Veteran....I am told one can see colors in the torrent of the words that rain down at those moments.

But, I kept driving and found myself instead, mid "Thank you Lord"...which I said over and over....as I patted my newly changed purse that held my insurance card.

I'm not sure what the fall out was from that whole crazy moment, but I do know the truck cleared it's way through because as I did the I'm -kinda -in -shock -old -lady -crawl up the road clinging to the left lane, and my religion I might add...the Mack truck passed me on the right...and we waved at each other....survivors of the Idiot Car Event.

I am breathing, I thought...not crushed between a Mack Truck and someone's back seat...I live another day, to love my husband and child ... I even hugged the devil dog when I got home.

Just like the old Calvin Klein commercial "Nothing between me and my Calvins"...I can say with great certainty, there was nothing between me and that Mack truck...

except

one

big

wonderful

God.

.....

Here we go again...

2011-01-03T11:34:00.003-05:00

Dear University of Pittsburgh and Ex Coach Haywood's Baby Mamma,

Here is the definition of vetting, please use it in the future.

Yours truly,

Invisi-Gal

vetting

Definition:

Formal and thorough examination (usually by an expert)prior to grant of approval or clearance.

OWN it big or go home.

2011-01-02T13:33:00.008-05:00

Invisi-gal would like to know, is there another poet on this planet besides Maya Angelou?

How often must we witness the trainwreck called The Judds?

If you wanted to brainwash a culture would you put the same thing on radio as you do on television and magazines?

That is the feeling I get from the new Oprah Winfrey Network...every guest, host, friend from her TV show and radio channel are now the very SAME people on her new network on Discovery.

I watched the soft launch yesterday and it felt like a 24 hour episode of the Oprah show/radio/magazine...Dr.Oz was there, Suzie Orman, Dr.Phil...the whole fam damily!

Regurgitation after regurgitation of the same ol' thing...yawn, blink blink.

"This is the way to think , my people"...because it's the same message by the same people with the same opinions about the same everything...nothing new, no variety, same same same...your olive drab uniform will be issued to you at the gate my people...step this way just like me...

I was thrown by the low budget programming, just like anything else you can see on Discovery channel or other channels for that matter...I held on tight to the remote in fear the "I was Pregnant and Didn't Know it" show would be the 6pm show....just in time for dinner....yum...

I cringe at the thought of the new reality shows that will be created for OWN like "You are The Most Important Person Ever", or "Abortion Clinic Escorts: Warriors of Suction", or the most coveted "My Pain is Greater Than Yours, Let's Put it all on the Air".

Did I actually hear that this was "smart " programming... I searched for the IQ criteria in that statement...really...shoving the same people, places and things down my throat is smart?

Well maybe to a propagandist.

Oprah needs to own OWN big time, take some risks out of the comfort food zone and go big ... show me something I don't know and most importantly something she doesn't know...

She knows her power...what other media force was able to get a partime Senator/Oprah Bookclub author elected president?

So the question is, will she continue to play along that party line ( I guarantee her Liberal like minded auto-trons are ga-ga over her new channel) pushing agendas in the form of entertainment, or will she really open it up to the challenge of all things possible....and not only possible if Gayle, or Dr.Oz, or Marianne WIlliamson say so?

The best part of the programming was a glimpse of her walking into her studios and I got a tear thinking about the dreams of a young overweight black girl from Tennessee with a background of hurt, who came so far to this point...I appreciate that, I appreciate that becoming the force she is came at a great personal price...but her message is becoming too uniform and I'm feeling a little manipulated by the same voices.

Still waiting for the wow, aha moment.

Nothing new under the sun...

OWNership sure can be a byotch.

....

Real girls don't smoke fake cigarettes...

2010-12-20T14:48:00.004-05:00

First of all, I don't make a habit of watching the serial Bravo has concerning The Real Housewives of Whatever...I always find the women difficult to watch and I never feel the slightest kinship with them...

HOWEVER...I have been known to overhear an episode while doing something else ...idle background noise....so I guess I do listen to it.

Last night, while getting ready to go out with my family for an incredible night of music, BE Taylor's Christmas Show...I was getting dressed, made up, cleaned up etc...

I flipped on the TV for some background chatter and there was Real Housewives of Beverly HIlls.

I 'm still trying to understand the REAL part...they were all walking adverts for plastic surgery, and personal staging, major cut and paste action.

Apparently they are "friends" and apparently were getting together for dinner after a tense weekend together in NY...Hey, I can follow this story with half my brain too.

They were meeting at Camille Grammar's house (ex Mrs. Kelsey) and she was the source of the tense weekend before.

There were about 7 or so of them and they all pretty much look alike and act alike so I can't name anyone else other than Kyle because she's the only brunette.

Camille, needing support, invited her friend and psychic Allison DuBois...Allison is the real Medium about which the show (produced by Camille and ex Kelsey) Medium is all about.

The women proceeded to get together and drink copious amounts of alcohol from the largest martini glasses ever made and barely touch their food (are you surprised) they were higher than their botox bills ...

and then it started...

dancing around the tension, taking feline precision jabs at one another...I watched Allison DuBois get very drunk, (huffing on an electronic cigarette) and very mean and say things that would cause any viewer of her show to never watch Medium again.

But that's not what this piece is about...I'm writing about the bigger picture...

I watched each woman pick up on the negative energy , take it deep in their mouth like a racing horse on the bit, and run with it...with the exception of 2 women, who were peripheral characters. who looked horrified...they saw the nasty and wanted nothing to do with it, they actually sat in their seats with their hands clutched up over their chests in a protective manner.

I believe that psychic ability exists, I think we all are "psychic", we all feel the energy, good and evil around us, we all dream of those departed, we all get "intuitive feelings". God hopes for us to learn to discern the energies...by being strong in our faith, we become very accurate. Some of us are tuned into it, some of us choose to ignore it.

And some of us, use it for manipulative purposes...and to those of you who do...

shame on you.

Allison DuBois exposed herself as a user of dark energy on national television, I watched her energy infiltrate and erupt in those women (except for lucky 2) , turning the dinner party into the party from hell.

It was easy for her to do this, because the women who engaged in the backbiting were the most weak minded and of little or no personal faith.

They took the disturbing "bait" and attacked each other, pointed fingers, drew claws,raised their already thin voices and exhibited such a distasteful frenzy...and Allison sat there calmy, the supreme b***h and smiled the whole time.

She was pleased.

That's what Dark Energy does, it tears down others, makes the moment uncomfortable, controls the tone of the room.

Don't engage in it, pray immediately, normalize the conversation, never get nasty in kind, stay strong and then get the heck out of there.

I found myself standing in front of the TV grasping my hairbrush, forgetting about getting ready...in shock over such a clear example of the Devil comes to dinner.

I shook it off and finished quickly in my assembly and jumped into the car...the rest of the evening was a piece of heaven and healing at it's best...We sat in the music hall and witnessed joy to the world BE Taylor style.

I was so happy that he exists out there to counteract the bad blood donations of Allison DuBois.

I was so happy to hear affirmation after affirmation of the power of accepting the love.... Vitamin L if you will ;)

There is no reason to live any other way.

The light erases the dark faster than a hummingbird painting a sunrise.

Next time, when I'm getting ready for a night off, I'll remember this episode of RHBH and turn on the stereo instead...BE Taylor will be my first choice.

You have a choice too, that's the kicker in all of this...you can choose whether to live on fake cigarettes or take the daily dose of Vitamin L.

Free will, still the best thing going.....

...www.betaylor.com

Encounters at Counters

2010-12-06T12:46:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I was scanning the shelves in Tuesday Morning for some candles...they have a ba-zillion candles and sometimes they carry Tag Chapel candles, which I love because they are unscented, and do you care...anyway, I found two and got in line at the check out counter.

The woman behind me kept staring at me.

My first reaction when someone is staring at me, is to check my teeth for food, make a mental note of the What Not To Wear outfit I might be wearing,smooth my hair and check for a big ass bug in it, or make sure I haven't tucked my skirt into my pantyhose therefore exposing my who-who to the general public...ah, don't laugh, I've actually done that.

After that I sometimes recall that I have been on television or radio or on the stage for the last twenty-some years and people do "out me" and come up and chat...it usually takes me a while to figure out why a stranger thinks they know me and then it hits me, duh. It's something I will never get used to.

Meanwhile, back to the staring contest...

The woman said, "I'm sorry I keep staring at you, I don't mean to be rude, you just look so familiar, you remind me of someone."

Just as I was about to say, well maybe you know me from television...(this time of year they air reruns of the WXXX Holiday Jam over and over and over again, I get a lot of emails and hellos from that)...

she held up her hands and said " No no, its' not that you are somebody, you just look like somebody".

I nervously giggled , pondering what fresh hell might singe my non-somebody ego.

"You look like that actress, what's her name?".

I sighed an aging ingénue sigh of relief and said "Thank God it's an actress and not some WWF mud wrestler."

She was still lost in thought , head bowed, in her own analog middle-aged recall google ..."Candy, is her name Candy"

Uh oh, she's not naming a porn star is she, this could go south real fast....

"No , it's Elaine...no wait, DIANE LANE, that's it Diane Lane!" she is now doing the I-do-not-have-Old-Timer's-I can -remember- a damn-name-strut.

Oh, how nice , Diane Lane, what a compliment....she is wearing glasses though....maybe needs a change in prescription...

she goes on to tell me she was the production coordinator on the set when Diane Lane was in Pittsburgh shooting a movie I never saw, but how exciting....someone who actually saw Diane Lane in real life, says I look like her...this is big...and I can always use big.

I was about to engage her in a conversation about the local film industry and how we may have many folks in common but something held me back...I really don't know what.

Maybe I wanted to be just a random Diane Lane -in -my -dreams -look -alike and leave it at that.

I walked out into the parking lot with a big smile and wondered if Diane Lane drove an SUV with soccer gear and a 35 pound bag of dog food in the back...

and does she shop at Tuesday Morning to get a deal on candles...

would she buy the dark chocolate mint bar I just bought at the counter and it eat it...

or perish the thought, her next film might have a nude scene....

does she wear yoga pants to the store even though she didn't just come from yoga class?

and does she ever,

EVER,

have someone mistake her for someone else?

...

Drop Kick that Bird...one more time

2010-11-22T22:38:00.002-05:00

One thing I realized as an adult is that every family lives at one level or another of dysfunction. Our level was the Grand Dysfunctional level ...and therefore the stuff of legend...I always thought we should be issued a plaque or something.

As a teenager in the 70's, I was part of the Baby boomer youth generation and it's big rebellion with our parents, the Greatest Generation. They were in a complete quandry as to just what the hell the kids were rebelling against . The clash mostly came to a head on holidays...our house was no exception...

One Thanksgiving in particular, is the stuff of legends...and so it goes.

My mother was a partial cook,mainly weekends and holidays...and it would take at least three Brandy Alexanders for her to get through the night...Thanksgiving was a challenge for her this year, because her husband Bill , our stepfather, had invited his cranky 90 year old last-survivor-of-the-Johnstown-flood-when-will- this-woman-ever-die-mother over for Thanksgiving....her name was Daisy (good God I named my dog that, is that some weird Jungian thing?) and Daisy didn't like my mom or the fact that her son had packed her off to the the Lutheran Home to spend her final days among the quilt makers.

Daisy was parked strategically in the sunporch and and barking unrecognizable orders into the air as Bill crept into the vodka...my mom in the kitchen, was announcing to no one in general that the cooking would begin and was intermittently rousting my sister and me out of bed with the mantra.."This is not the Hilton, you girls better get up and help with dinner".

I dragged my teenager self down to the kitchen to find my mother deep into Brandy ALexander Uno and her arm up to her elbow into the cavity of the turkey...I presume it had to do with the filling... God I hope so...I must of had a strange look on my face..so mother in her most grand and almost slurred way said "You know I could've been a surgeon."...well there's your explanation, pardner.

The turkey stuffed and silenced was carried and placed in the double oven on the wall.

I could hear Daisy's raspy voice yelling something from the sunporch which sent my stepfather, Bill straight out of the room and back to the liquour cabinet....
as teenager's we can never know the stress adults are under, until we become adults..all we know is that something is brewing and we want to be around to catch any loose change that falls on the ground when it's all over.

Hours later, my sister sauntered on down and another discussion about the Hilton began..apparently we are not princesses and my mother is not our maid and yada yada yada...oops I think I just rolled my eyes ...the requisite snotty teenage girl reaction to a lecture...oh and another thing if you think I was put on this earth just to clean up after you two, you are GREATLY mistaken...

Daisy barks again from the sunporch, you know the woman could've caught fire and no one would ever bother to go check...Bill heads to the vodka...my mom is now melting down over the fact that nobody helped peel the potatoes and this is ..say together... NOT THE HILTON (of course I'm wondering if we ever did stay in a Hilton and I could use a frame of reference here). The eye rolling begins and oh we are caught mid roll as my mom downs another Brandy Alexander...and the pitch is going up and up and....who is going to help me make this meal..how late did you girls stay out last night..this doesn't all happen by magic you know..I am not the maid....no one helps me around here...

and out of the corner of my eye....

I see Bill...

did he just open the oven door?

wait a minute...does he have the turkey...

where is he going....

I yelled something like "hey"...

my mother and my sister and I stop dead mid-yell....

we can hear the front door open...

we all start making our way through the hall to the door...

just in time to hear Bill saying " You want help with the turkey, here's your damn turkey"...

and then a large muffled thud.

He had dropped kicked the turkey into the yard...

the three of us stood stunned in the door way...

Bill walked right past us back into the house,wiping his hands....

a suburban Pontius Pilate.

My mother didn't skip a beat, she looked at the brutalized Butter Ball in the yard and said. "I am NOT cleaning that up."

Of course not...this is ..not the Hilton...and you aren't ...the maid.

..........
Years later we wrote a song called "Drop Kick that Bird" It was played in rotation on WXXX...my mom called everyone she knew to tell them to request it.

It became our Thanksgiving story...no pilgrims, no Indians no maize...no, just remember when Bill drop kicked that bird....

The neighborhood dogs were thankful for the free meal in the grass and I was amazed at the quickness of their removal of a carcass.

Bill was thankful it shut Daisy up for awhile.

My mother was thankful she actually didn't have to cook the rest of the meal.

My sister was thankful for the distraction from her breaking curfew.

My uncle Denny was thankful that we stopped by , although unannounced ,and ate turkey at his house.

And ...I was thankful that the word Hilton wasn't used the rest of the night.

Happy Thanksgiving, from one Grand Dysfunctional family to another...all we can do is live in victory and don't stress over getting it all right...leave the perfection to God.

....

The Chances we Get

2010-11-20T22:59:00.002-05:00

I am writing this through tear clouded eyes. I admit it, I am a weeper, even commercials get to me, but today, today was one of those days only a morphan (middle aged orphan) can understand. An event at the grocery store triggered such a moment of mourning for my mom and a grateful feeling for the chances we get.

I am also wondering why in heaven's name do I always have these moments at the grocery store?

Really.

Today I was doing a little weekly shopping and preliminary stock up for Thanksgiving, it was crowded, lots of senior citizens...social security check day no doubt. The aisles were crowded and moving slow and cranky babies were cranking in the usual cranky way. These are the days that I put my stereo headphones on, pump up the iTunes and proceed to hunter/gather in my own little world of lush harmonies and guitars and oh my, are those free cheese samples?

I found my things without event , even had the guy at the seafood counter do me a solid on some scallops for dinner, yeah scallops, I now like them...and I slid up into line and removed my headphones to join the real world ...I was reading the tabloid headlines about Will and Kate when I heard someone yell "Help her , help her , she's falling".

I look back down onto the aisle to see and elderly woman whose legs had failed her and given out , she was hanging onto her cart for dear life, terrified that she might fall to the floor and hurt her head...I was four deep in line at the register and was quickly trying to figure how to snake out and grab her, when a another woman came up from behind her and held her, voices were yelling "Get her a chair, someone help!"

This woman was so small and frail , her hair a mass of white, she was barely taller than the shopping cart, which was filled so high it must have been a monumental labor to push.

The look on her face was one of complete fright. She was so scared and alone.

Within seconds there was a wheel chair, she was whisked into it and someone was calling 911.

I became a bowl of jello.

Tears were streaming down my face all the way to the car.

It took me back to a year before my mother came to live in Pittsburgh in assisted living and how she told me she had experienced low blood sugar and her knees gave out on her in the grocery store. She recounted how the clerks helped her and sat her on the bench and gave her some orange juice to drink...it was so disturbing to hear this. They asked her if there was anyone she could call to pick her up, she couldn't come up with a name, her husband was dead, and her daughters lived too far away....okay you can kill me right now.

These kind strangers where doing my job.

That moment marked the beginning of the move here. She needed help to shop, to bath, to even walk. It was time to say goodbye to the behemoth of the house and head to the burgh.

For 4 years I shopped every week for her...she hated the food where she was staying, and it becomes an obsession, not much else to focus on ya know...so in the midst of a full time job and taking care of a family, I became Delivery Girl...there should have been a hat involved, I'm sure of that.

Mom would call me several times a week to add things to the list, Equal was on it several times. Packets of Equal are like crack in nursing homes, they hoard it and use it to curry favors.

I pushed carts full of strange items only seniors need and I made sure I proclaimed at check out , those diapers aren't for me ...sometimes I cranked about it, sometimes she cranked about it , but it was a connection for us as I delivered and stocked the groceries in her fridge...and I would cook her favorite foods and bring those over too.

She was diabetic and wanted all the wrong foods, but here's a tip for those out there caring for an elderly parent at the end of their years...lighten up...let them have the damn cookies...you're not going to reverse the diabetes and what are we talking here, a few years left? Better yet, sit and eat the cookies with them.

I'm glad I had the chance to shop and care for my mom, and yes, caring for her turned some things upside down for awhile...but hey, I imagine I rocked her boat pretty much straight through the 70's and well, you know the saying about paybacks ...the routine became so ingrained that after my mom passed, I couldn't bring myself to go into a grocery store for quite awhile, because I was falling into tears at the check out each time.

But if I hadn't taken the chance to take care of her, what would I be thinking about when I saw that woman today?

Even though the sight of her little hands hanging on so tight to the cart reduced me to my usual quivering crying self , a voice inside me kept reminding me that for the last four years of my mom's life, she never had to rely on the kindness of strangers in a grocery store ever again because someone was there for her, taking the chance.

...

An open letter to Jeff Bezos of Amazon

2010-11-14T13:38:00.003-05:00

Dear Mr.Bezos,

I'm sure the heading of this email is all you need to know of the correspondence ahead.

Of course I am shocked at your inclusion of a how to manual for pedophiles,The Pedophile's Guide to Love and Pleasure, and in turn, disturbed that you stand behind Freedom of Speech to sell it, but what really shocks me is your need to do so.

Because of your inability to understand the larger ramifications of your commercial rationalization of this indefensible subject, I can only conclude that somewhere down the road, you lost not only your spine but your soul.

You had the luxury of the decision as to whether or not selling this book was something you really needed to do.

Apparently it is.

Therefore our family will make a similar decision that we no longer need to order from Amazon, that would be covered under my Freedom from Creeps.

In truth,

Invisi-gal

1963 and Jackie the Tomboy Runaway

2010-10-13T17:31:00.004-04:00

In 1963 we lived in Glen Ellyn , a suburb on the outskirts of Chicago...the suburbs were exploding with WWII vets and their families carving out the American dream.

We had two car garages and enough room for a neighborhood par three in the adjoining back yards. We had neighborhood barbecues and gangs of kids on Schwinn bikes and swing sets dotted the property lines.

Most of all, we had freedom. We kids roamed our neighborhoods as if we would inherit every house, every tree, and every stone on the ground. On summer days, we would jump on our bikes in the morning and disappear until lunch...grilled cheese, hot dogs, Campbell soup and a bowl of grapes...the meal of explorers.

I knew every good climbing tree, every stream and where to cross it and whose back yard you could cut through. I knew the yards with friendly dogs ( I always carried a treat for them) and which dogs you stayed away from (no treat for you!).

I was 6 years old then, and still convinced I could fly...I used to jump off a big boulder near our house wishing it so.

This is the year I mastered the two-wheeler NO TRAINING WHEELS THANK YOU VERY MUCH...

it was the year I remember seeing my mother weeping at the dining room table over the newspaper which held the details of President Kennedy's assassination,

it was the year I cut myself grabbing a broken Noxema jar out of the stream near Mahoney's yard , leaving the first scar I ever had.

It was the year my sister and I met Jackie the Tomboy Runaway.

At the top of Hackberry Lane, a new house was being built, otherwise known as an attractive nuisance by my mom...we loved to explore in new houses, wondering who would move in, would there be kids our age, would they have cool bikes, would their dog be nice? We always found things left by the workers, coke bottles, cigarette butts, and pieces of wood I just knew we could use in our fort in the woods...but we never expected we would find a person.

One afternoon while sneaking into the new house, we were surprised by the presence of a girl, about 15 years old, dressed in jeans and a dark jacket, she had a bandana on (the first I'd ever seen NOT on a cowboy)…she had a chain on her wallet and short black hair and Beatle boots.

We were startled at first when we saw her, but she had an easy smile and in the most disarming way said "Hi" as if she was supposed to be in this house...

I looked at my sister Ellen (at three years older she was the boss of me), and took her lead that this was okay and we started up a conversation.

Jackie was a runaway, she didn't say from what.

She was living on the road and a bit hungry. She was going to stay for only a few days then be on her "Jackie Kerouac" way.

Ellen and I, eager to be a part of this adventure, immediately rattled off the contents of our refrigerator at home and how we could sneak food to her NO PROBLEM. We are pros at this stuff, we think.

Jackie smiled.

We ran home and assembled PB&J sandwiches, bananas, apples, cheese... your typical rebel food...and on the walk back I asked my sister why Jackie dressed like a boy..."Because she's Tomboy, that's why" ...it was the first time I ever heard that term...Tomboy...wow, new word, new friend, this is what being 6 is all about.

We got back to the Tomboy runaway hiding place and proudly displayed our "get" for Jackie, all the while bragging about our stealth operation and how we told our mom we were eating lunch al fresco, translation: in the woods at our fort.

We watched her wolf down her food and then she pulled out her jackknife to cut her apple…ANOTHER first...a jackknife! This Tomboy Runaway was getting cooler by the second; free of her parents and rules, out on the open road, cool bandana, owner of a jackknife...I bet she knew one of the Beatles, she wore their boots, you know.

We walked home in inspired silence...this was more fun than any Pipi Longstocking book...this girl smoked that Eloise at the Plaza...

I couldn't wait to get back to the construction site the next morning...I had more stolen food and Bazooka bubblegum to give her. I couldn't wait to tell her what she missed on The Ed Sullivan show the night before and that we were trying to sneak a pillow and blanket out to her...

but the house was empty, no one answered when I did the secret knock...one two, one two.

Jackie was gone.

No note, no nothing, just gone.

I backed out to the dirt filled front yard, and stared at the unfinished house so like Jackie, a work in progress, yet to be defined.

The walk home was a long thoughtful one, heavy footsteps full of letdown.

I think I checked back one or two times later that week, but Jackie the Tomboy runaway was gone. She became a staple in my prayers, Dear God please bless so and so and sorry for not cleaning my room and help Jackie find her way home.

Pretty soon Jackie the Tomboy Runaway just became a story we would tell the other neighbor kids, and then something my sister and I would reminisce about as adults...we still can't pinpoint why we never alerted our parents about her.

Jackie would be close to maybe 65 years old today, that's if and it's a big if, she survived her life on the road. Or maybe Jackie the Tomboy Runaway was just a kid from a nearby neighborhood who wanted to scare her parents, to finally get them to stop forcing her to wear dresses and corsages and grow her hair long like the Lennon sisters. At least that's how my 6 year old mind defined the terms of hurt ... as an adult, I imagine there may have been a more sorrowful story behind Jackie.

Who knows.

All I know is that she felt alone enough to run from the place where you should feel safe and above all, loved. She felt compelled to risk whatever unknowns just so she could be, or find out, who she was.

God already knew who she was, he already counted every short black hair on her head, she just didn't know that.

And I knew who she was, she was Jackie the Tomboy Runaway, the most exciting thing to happen on Hackberry Lane, and maybe , just maybe, in our simple act of bringing food to her and listening to her with such awe, she felt special enough to stop the running.

An Open Letter to NBC News with Brian Williams

2010-10-06T09:34:00.004-04:00

Dear Sirs or Madams,

Did I hear Brian Williams correctly tonight...did he use the word "insurgent" when referring to the mostly Tea Party candidates in his report tonight?

What incendiary biased influence peddling was that?

While the word "insurgent" may be somewhat of a word search moment, he most obviously knew that those watching would key in to the word as one used to
describe hostile combatants of US Troops in Afghanistan or Iraq.
Insurgent is also akin to the word terrorist in our modern newspeak.

Mr.Williams has lost all credibility as a newsman to go as far to tag Americans who are exercising their rights as "insurgents".

He has certainly flown his preference flag and has lost the honor to wear the mantle of the neutral newsman.

His bias cheapens the broadcast.

You have lost a family of viewers, respect, and credibility on this one.

You are not above reproach...you have insulted many Americans with this elitist eyebrow lift and boorish vocabulary call.

Yours truly,

Invisi-Gal

The falsehood of audacity and the time bomb that is Iran...

2010-10-03T13:06:00.004-04:00

In a not surprising speech this week, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for U.S. leaders to be "buried" in response to what he says are American threats of military attacks against Tehran's nuclear program. His particular words of insult were specific death threats in his native tongue.

All this less than a month after Holocaust denier, and resident madman, Ahmadinejad spoke at the United Nations declaring 911 an inside job, a direct and astounding insult to us as a nation...

I am amazed that I still hear snickers among American, just like the ones we heard as we watched the rag tagged Taliban fighters in the black and white training videos from Afghanistan shortly before 911....little did we know they were systematically plotting the most horrific assault ever on US soil.

We treat Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a spoiled out of control toddler in the checkout line at the grocery store, snicker, point and ignore.

In 2009, I had issue with the fact that President Obama was willing to engage in talks with Iran without pre-conditions, not because I don't believe in diplomacy , but because I was stunned by his audacity.

Did he really think that he would be the ONE who would convince , through his super ultra intelligence, this rabid Iranian leader to put down his unwavering beliefs and weapons and listen to him? Did he really think he would step in and show us how it's done..that the leaders and diplomats before him were rubes, and he was so much smarter then they?

Who did this half term Senator-Oprah-book-club-pick-idealogue think he was fooling? I guess he was banking on the fact that if we were naive enough to elect him to the highest office in the land, that we were indeed not as smart as he.

Obama, along with David Axelrod, packaged a finely tuned Too Smart For the Room campaign. Levied by hatred for Bush and buoyed by the promise of a decent candidate post John Kerry, they slid this inexperienced man right on through to the Oval Office.

The mere mention of negotiating with mad man Mahmoud Ahmadinejad showed no working knowledge of foreign policy and left half of the country thinking..."Does this guy read the newspapers?".

What kind of open dialogue can you have with a Holocaust denier, Sharia stoning death enforcer, and someone who wishes to "wipe Israel from the face of the earth"?

As this administration fiddles, Iran has slowly and PUBLICLY assembled the biggest nightmare imaginable; nuclear capability owned and operated by an unstable hateful theocratic leader... Ahmadinejad can't wait to fire the first shot and it won't be across the bow...

In the meantime, Obama has conducted drone wars in Afghanistan, pulled down troops in Iran and distracted the country with a deeply flawed and, according to 67% of Americans, unwanted Health Care Bill...

he turned Washington into his spending-taxing-cash printing press...

bolstered division among parties through speeches,

and sunk to a new low in popularity polls among his own adoring fans...

and we watch as his economic advisers,

like the proverbial rats jumping ship over their own failure,

trip on each other as they run from the White House,

His leadership as CIC saw the deadliest 18 months in Iraq/Afghanistan since the beginning of the war

...and faced with opposition and exposure of his term's failures, he draws George Bush like a loaded blame gun every chance he gets.

Which can only cause this voter to say."You need to cowboy up and stop the whining and get yourself some help from people who know what the hell they're doing, because you certainly don't."

Sure, along with Ashley Judd, Obama is a Harvard grad, and he's a great community organizer, but to put it in plain speak...I would rather have the licensed qualified surgeon who's operated before do the operation than the guy who studied a book on medicine and has the audacity to raise the scalpel, and bluster his superior knowledge of the procedure he's never done.

Our president now faces a real and dangerous threat from a man capable of carrying it out...the rest of the world, who has no delusions about the intentions of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his sinister nuclear ambitions, waits to see if the leader of the free world will stand by his title.

My guess would be that president Obama, whose leadership negating liberation theology, is uncomfortable with the responsibility of having to vanquish this enemy and become in turn, a benevolent victor.

So we are left as a nation, led by the falsehood of audacity and the time bomb that is Iran.

Stink Bug-a-Phobia and perfect irony.

2010-09-27T09:07:00.005-04:00

Yeah, that's me, Chicken Little...I knew these things were bad news...there were too many of them and they stink when you kill them, plus no known predators...who has no known predators ?

I kept saying last year, this is not good.

I was whipped into entomological submission by google searches, and experts in the media... "they are innocuous, they cause no harm, they're like lady bugs, don’t kill them it causes stink, just ignore them".

So last year, when I saw a small invasion inside my house, I basically relocated them outside and ignored them...I tried to view them as lady bugs, who actually have a good purpose in the garden in eating aphids...but their crusty shield like bodies just didn't seem non-threatening like our orange spotted friends. Something in the back of mind was telling me "This just stinks".

Now this year, we come to find out, the stink bug is decimating the apple crops in several states and it's worse than before...they make the dog puke when she eats one (that's been a bed of roses to deal with) and I spend the better part of sunny afternoons killing and disposing of these invaders...and cursing my own insectal wussification that allowed me to not aggressively get rid of those bugs last year.

I should have followed my instincts and eradicated them with abandon last year, not giving them a chance to get a foothold in my yard, my home, my life.

The whole time we've had major clues as to their mission...they are shaped like shields, they stink, they eat cash crops, and nothing wants to attack them for fear of the stink.

We sat around and watched it happened with our eyes wide open....

So I'm hoping not much damage has been done, and we can get rid of these things, and next time, next time when something doesn't SMELL right, let's use the history of this, and do something about it from the start, and don't be bullied by an inaccurate media.

In a twist of unromantic irony, turns out chickens will eat stink bugs....so my role as Chicken Little has greater meaning after all, the perfectness is not lost on this little chicken.

.....

A Bend in the Road.

2010-09-07T08:15:00.007-04:00

We live on a hillside up above a busy road, a busy 4 lane road with a long stretch of highway and a big bend. It makes it attractive to those who like to speed.

We are also near some businesses, so we're used to hearing delivery trucks dumping loads at the local garden supply...we love living here, we call it the city cottage, 8 minutes from downtown but on 4 acres of land.

On cool nights we love to sleep with the upstairs windows open, sometimes the crickets are so loud, they overpower any vehicle noises.

Since we have lived here, 14 years now, we have heard the screeching of tires and the subsequent hard clunk of metal to alert us that an accident has happened. It always happens right at the bend, the bend where speed and alcohol fail to mix.

Usually it happens in the middle of the night, and I call 911...they know me by name now. It used to be a common occurrence when the bar down the street was open. It's been closed now for almost a year and the accidents have ceased. The only vehicles we hear at night are the occasional trucks or a speedster with a loud muffler.

Except for the one two nights ago.

There was a loud thump, like the sound of a dump truck load hitting the ground and then the shake of a trailer...my husband and I both heard it and fell back to sleep. Neither one of us even opened our eyes or looked at the clock, so when I awoke later, I had no idea how much time had passed....I awoke because of flashing swirling lights below...up I rose to the window.

Below on the street in total silence where five patrol cars blocking off the road and two EMS vehicles. It was an eerie quiet because there was no talking, no rushing, no sirens...just silence.

The EMS vehicle stood still, no dashing off to a hospital.

Whatever happened below was serious enough to require all these vehicles, but it was final in it's stillness. No one was walking away from this, no one was recovering, no one was alive.

After awhile I got back into bed and prayed and prayed for the soul of this person for whom all the lights are flashing.

They were there from a little after 1am until 6am....cleaning up. Long clean up.

We found out later it was a motorcycle accident, he failed to negotiate the bend, hit head on into a utility pole, then the rider and bike flew 15 feet and hit an empty trailer that was parked in the adjacent parking lot....that was the sound that woke us up, what we thought was a truck unloading, was this horrible last moment of someone's life. The rider was killed instantly, blunt force trauma, a severed leg and lacerated aorta...he completely bled out.

There was no warning of this accident, no screeching of brakes, or honking horn or loud voices, nothing...just the sound of the hit. There were barely skid marks to the pole which is now a fractured roadside memorial dressed with flowers and wreaths and a flag.

All weekend long, there has been a steady stream of motorcyclists slowly riding by, a strange survival observance, and the occasional stop to add to the memorial.

It was a local man who leaves behind a young daughter and grieving family.

I won't go into whether he wore a helmet or leathers, what does it matter at this point? I heard the police asking someone visiting the scene if they knew where he had been, had he been drinking? I suppose an autopsy will clarify that one.

I don't know why there wasn't the sound of tires squealing before he hit that pole, I don't know why for the first time, ever, we slept through an accident.

I don't know why it seems that the change of seasons seems to accelerate events.

I never get the answer to any of those things, and I'm all thought-out. I see it as a tender mercy, that God is in the details and the details are none of our business.

All I know for sure at this point, is that a little girl lost her dad, her life forever altered by a bend in the road.

It's all in the Non Answer.

2010-06-01T17:44:00.002-04:00

I've interviewed quite a few people in my career on TV and radio...and the one thing I came away with was how to spot an insane/pathological liar/addict.

They are all the same and their modus operandi is identical...they NEVER answer your question directly, they veer off into their pre determined agenda, which is one of manipulation...and depending on how crazy or addicted or pathological they are, you can bet it's a trip up interview hill you don't want to climb.

I witnessed Oprah, as the master she is, interview Sarah Ferguson and never once get a straight answer from her...Sarah, the former Duchess of York, is in royal hot water for selling access to her former husband Prince Andrew to an undercover reporter for half a million pounds.

She appeared doped up and never directly answered even one question...I watched Oprah patiently probe and circle and cross examine with the patience of an air traffic controller...fielding in rationalizations, dive bombing half truths, and meandering replies.

I think Oprah's patience was rooted in the fact that she was facing a woman in crisis.

Fergie admitted as much, but there was an odor of insincerity as in, "I know all the repentant press crap jargon,.. how's my hair?"

Oprah knew she was watching a women about to hit bottom, and felt no need to kick her as she was down.

Oprah is a better person than I am or at least more of a pro...the crew would have been tasked with prying my hands from around Fergie's neck and drag me away as I scream at her "You tremendous neurotic waste of time!!!"

I would have realized I could've have handled that one better and where, oh where, is my nine iron...

That is why Oprah gets the big bucks and I play golf instead.

.....

Nashville shows its class...

2010-05-11T13:50:00.004-04:00

It's been hard to watch the treatment of Tennessee and Mississippi during this horrible devastation.

Tornado activity and flooding has ravaged these areas beyond belief.

The media all but ignored the situation even though news feeds showed buildings floating down the interstate in Nashville.

In an act of sincere contrition, CNN's Anderson Cooper is publicly apologizing for the snub.

The President, himself, didn't acknowledge the devastation until four days later and he did so in a tweet..a tweet? WTF...
of course I know there was a massive oil spill and a foiled terrorist attack..but this is the nature of the job and the CIC needs to to show up...for pete's sake, send VP Biden or another lacky.

For someone who made it a campaign clarion call to point out the mistakes of Katrina, this was CIC Barack Obama's big chance to show how much better off we are with him running the show...hello?

Nashville showed it's class by not complaining or pointing blame, they dug in immediately and HELPED THEMSELVES...they know FEMA is all but depleted of funds...due to the outrageous number of politically motivated Fed assist calls by Obama in one year...

They never brought up the fact that maybe this treatment is some passive aggressive "red" state payback...but I will...yes I will go there...
and during the help Nashville telethon , which was NOT televised nationally as was the Katrina telethon...not one celeb pulled a reverse Kanye West by declaring "Barack Obama doesn't care about white people."
For those who need to be reminded of his statement at the Katrina telethon, Kanye blindsided his on air buddy Jimmy Fallon by declaring "George Bush doesn't care about black people".

Maybe folks now will see the absurdity in that original comment.

Nashville sees beyond the politics, they are too busy digging out of the mud to swipe at anybody.

They have way too much class for that...and maybe I don't for raising such thoughts, but the truth is we learn by contrast.

So my hat off to the folks of Nashville for staying above the fray and taking care of business and showing the rest of the country, that we the people are the government and not the other way around.

To quote The One himself, "Let me be clear: Tennessee seems to be handling this disaster quite well. This is not a call for Federal aid to rush in and start to screw things up - it’s the symbolism attached to knowing the President of your country is aware of what your state is going through." Really?

They will rebuild and stand on their own two feet, I only hope they have the voting booths up and running first.

....

Adventures of the Invisi-Gal ... or life at 50

A Better Way to Say Goodbye

Odds and Evergreens.

I am 10 years old, I am Nothing.

You are State Penn

Strategy 2012 ..Shoot the messenger and the ones who warned you about the message.

Reasons why I 'd rather see a photo of John Wayne ...

The Housecoat through the Ages

What Budget?

So, you think you can dance?

Odds n Ends

OVER 50 MEANS SHUT UP AND LISTEN, I KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT.

Wednesday's child is full of lead.

Labor pains...

The Evolution of Crushes

The Green Turtleneck...and other things I can't find.

Odds n' Ends....

Don't ask why I know this one....

More poems I learned as a child...

The Twins by Henry Sambrooke Leigh

Some things never leave us.

IT COULDN’T BE DONE

Let's get this party started! Ban everything!

Finger pointin' 101

Crisis,Opportunity,Finger Pointing and the death of Christina Taylor Green

Between me and the Mack truck

Here we go again...

vetting

Definition:

OWN it big or go home.

Real girls don't smoke fake cigarettes...

Encounters at Counters

Drop Kick that Bird...one more time

The Chances we Get

An open letter to Jeff Bezos of Amazon

1963 and Jackie the Tomboy Runaway

An Open Letter to NBC News with Brian Williams

The falsehood of audacity and the time bomb that is Iran...

Stink Bug-a-Phobia and perfect irony.

A Bend in the Road.

It's all in the Non Answer.

Nashville shows its class...